Blog - The Kaizen Times

15Jan

By Areeba Ahmed1 Comment

K-Pakistan

Pakistan’s Failure In The OGP

Open Government Partnership (OGP) consists of three main principles: Transparency, Participation and Collaboration. The idea of an open government rapidly gained popularity after President Barack Obama signed his first executive order, the “Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government” for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies in March 2009. This initiative meant to bridge the gap between the civilians and the government which brought the attention of the world as many countries started to actively change their governing principles to be more open and ultimately, a total of 77 countries and 106 local jurisdictions joined the OGP. Pakistan was also one of the countries that joined the OGP in 2016. However, unable to fulfil the set requirements, it was officially withdrawn from ...

When Reason Fails, The Devil Helps – A Review On Crime and Punishment

8Jan

By Faria MohsinNo Comments

K-Entertainment

When Reason Fails, The Devil Helps – A Review On Crime and Punishment

Dostoevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’ first appeared in 1866 in a Russian magazine. Revolving around Romanovich Raskolnikov, a Russian law student who lives in destitution and utmost poverty who decides through contradictory theories, including utilitarian morality and the belief that extraordinary people have the “perfect right to commit breaches of morality and crimes” and ultimately murders Alyona Ivanovna, an elderly pawnbroker. One murder leads him to another, descending him into a downward spiral of psychosis. Dostoevsky’s hero is an arrogant, egoistic, self-centered, condescending and a highly unlikeable smug individual, who thinks of his crime as not a murder but as riddance of a lower life form and as a favor to everyone and himself to be the savior. Today, we would recogn...

1Jan

By Noor-ul-AinNo Comments

K-Global

DECOLONISING SOUTH ASIAN BODIES

14th August 1947: 82 years. It has been eighty-two years since South Asians were liberated from the brutal colonial rule of the British Empire. Yet, we still observe the devastating manifestations of the subjugating rule in the fabric of our societies. From our tumultuous network of infrastructures to the deeply embedded stigmas depriving our populations of the right to live peacefully. Perhaps the most significant embodiment of the Empire is evident in our South Asian bodies. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the people of India suffered at the hands of a series of cataclysmic famines, perpetuated due to the structure of apathetic colonial policies amalgamated with nature's wrath. These policies included rack renting (both legal and illegal), abandonment of the maintenance of agr...

Hitler: A Chance Gambler Or An Evil Genius?

23Dec

By Jazib SaleemNo Comments

K-Global

Hitler: A Chance Gambler Or An Evil Genius?

Looking at history in hindsight with a critical apprehension, a lot of incidents and events effectively fall into a domino effect - making sense as slight factors contribute to a revolutionary movement such as the Suffrage Movement in the 1920s. However, some of the drastic occurrences that marked the Earth for better or worse remain strangely inexplicable. One of such neon question marks entails Hitler’s rise to power while the rest of the world slept soundly. The superpowers of that era simply turned a blind eye to Hitler’s blatant disregard of the infamous Treaty of Versailles, the unveiled rearmament of Germany which was essentially in light of preparation for the war and the consequent invasions into Sudetenland and Poland. Was it simply to prolong the unbalanced threatened ...

7Dec

By Khariya BatoolNo Comments

K-Science

Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants

Standing on the shoulders of giants - this is a common metaphor used in the empirical world to symbolize scientific progress. This concept dates back to the 12th century. Some of you might recognize it as the title of Stephen Hawking’s book ‘On the Shoulders of Giants’ while some others might recall it as a phrase underneath the Google Scholar’s search engine. But what exactly does it mean? The French philosopher Bernard of Chartres said that we are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size. It is just the idea that in order to make intellectual progress and developmen...

24Nov

By Aleeha WasifNo Comments

K-Global

Why the blue-eyed and the blonde first?

Ever since 1948, Palestinians have been choking on thick air with injustice, crime, and conundrum. Fear is a loyal, daily companion moving with them hand in hand, embodied in imprisonment and killing, mishandling and dishonouring of bodies, loss of income, honour, dignity, freedom, and rights. Every day civilians are met with the deaths of brothers, fathers, sons, and reality hits them hard when their retaliatory activities are labeled as extremism. Living under this decades-old occupation has brought serious risks to the health of the citizens and what's worse is that they are denied the right to medical treatments too. Maternal and neonatal mortality rates are high as mothers face delayed deliveries and extremely inadequate care. Women and children encounter poor health facilities, d...

The new face of Afghanistan’s Taliban ruler

4Aug

By Kaizen HighNo Comments

K-Global

The new face of Afghanistan’s Taliban ruler

The new face of Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers owes his freedom to the U.S. In 2001, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a co-founder of the Taliban, tried to arrange the group’s surrender to the new U.S.-backed Afghan government. It was rejected. He spent most of the past decade under arrest in Pakistan. He returns to power 20 years later after the U.S. lobbied for his release when the Trump administration launched talks with the Taliban. At the helm of the group’s political office in Doha, its de facto embassy, Mullah Baradar led talks with the U.S. that culminated in a deal to end America’s engagement in the 20-year war. The world still has little idea who Afghanistan’s new leaders are and how they will rule the country. If the movement has a face, today it is Mullah Baradar. He is the ...

From Kardeş to Perverts; An Increase in Discontent of the Pak-Turk Entente

30Jul

By Umer Hassan Wyne1 Comment

K-Global, K-Pakistan

From Kardeş to Perverts; An Increase in Discontent of the Pak-Turk Entente

Kardeş /noun./ (pronouncing ‘kar-dish’); Turkish for Sibling /Brother. A term which you would recurrently get referred to as, if you’re a Pakistani traveling in Turkey. Earlier this year, in April, indecorous videos and photographs of Turkish women and children surfaced on social media which were allegedly recorded by immigrants residing from Pakistan, creating a furor amongst the Turks, who justifiably responded by scathing retorts and taking their socials by storm with their ‘Get Out Pakistani men’ campaign which top trended in its major cosmopolitans. “ ‘Not all men’ yet all women feel unsafe around Pakistani men. Ironic, isn’t it? ” -Anoushey Ashraf (Actress) Bridging the illustrious Europeans to the prodigious Asians stands the mighty state of the Turks. What was once the ca...

14Jun

By Rija NaeemNo Comments

K-Global

Japanese shares declined

Japanese shares have declined as concerns about the rapidly spreading Delta coronavirus variant have kept investors in a chokehold. On the flip side, there have been optimistic earnings that have boosted Nippon Steel- a well-established Japanese company, and other seasonal shares. Some of the country’s most well-regarded companies, such as Toyota Motor, Sony, Honda Motor, and a few trading houses have yet to present the outcome via a report of their results. The Nikkei, which is the world’s largest financial newspaper, share average dipped 0.16% to 27,569.52, while the broader Topix fell 0.20% to 1,927.28. Concerns about sky-rocketing COVID-19 cases are intensifying as the Head of the Japan Medical Association has announced a nationwide state of emergency. "It's not that there...

5Feb

By Hasnat AslamNo Comments

K-Pakistan

Pakistan Downgraded to Frontier Market

MSCI announced that it will reclassify Pakistan from an emerging market to a frontier market The decision made on early morning Wednesday was rather anticipated (MSCI) Morgan Stanley Capital International Indexes are tracked by global institutional investors and asset managers alike MSCI said that Pakistani Markets no longer met the criteria for Size and liquidity Pakistan had a small equity weightage in the Emerging frontier market index where it was competing with more advanced emerging markets like China and India, in the EM index its weightage was reduced from 15 basis points to 2 basis points over the last few years Note: one basis point = 0.1% Now Pakistan would have a larger weightage in Frontier Index A common metaphor being dubbed for today’s move is t...